A former Greenwood Academy pupil has spoken of his joy at appearing in the latest series of Robot Wars.

Jamie McHarg – who first got the taste for engineering thanks to the original series – was delighted to finally enter his own robot for the show.

Team captain Jamie (pictured on right) now works in Aberdeen after he attended Greenwood Academy from 1999 to 2005, where he spent many spare hours in the technical workshops building his first robots.

Jamie told the Irvine Times: “It was quite an exciting feeling to be honest. I was a big fan of Robot Wars right from the start when it first aired so to finally get on it all these years later is fantastic.

“It was actually that TV show that made me want to get into engineering. I started secondary school just after that so technical classes helped guide me along that path really.”

“I was a bit nervous the week after the application was in waiting to hear whether we’d made it or not. But when the call came through it was pretty fantastic and exciting, quickly followed by more nerves in terms of getting the robot finished in time.”

Jamie’s Ayrshire team designed and built Coyote, a 110kg fighting machine armed with clamping jaws and an electric chainsaw to enter the Robot Wars arena.

“Coyote is armed with two weapons, on the front there’s a pair of clamping jaws kind of styled on the coyote animal so it’s almost like a front jaw. It is to grab opponents, get a good bite and then lift them off the ground and carry them around the arena so we can take them to the hazards, such as the flame pits or the spikes.

“It’s also got the chainsaw. Chainsaws weren’t really effective back in the original series, but a lot of robots nowadays are made from a plastic called HDPE which is the same stuff they make milk bottles from.

“It’s actually quite good for absorbing attacks from big spinning weapons, but also quite easy to cut with woodworking tools.”

Filming took place in December last year, inside the show’s specially constructed bullet proof arena in Glasgow, with Coyote appearing in last Sunday’s episode.

“We felt the show went really well. We didn’t really get much of a chance to test Coyote before the event, we did a little bit in the workshop, but nothing really prepares you for competing in the arena."

Sadly, after battling hard, Coyote took a severe battering from rival robot and series 8 runner up Carbide.

“Yeah it kind of all ended in tears really”, Jamie added. “It’s in the workshop at the moment. The main chassis survived relatively well, there wasn’t much needing done to that after our final fight.

“The jaw at the front that was the main victim of Carbide. It was pretty much entirely written off, but we’ve got new jaws cut, so hopefully get them welded together.

“So before long it should all be back in one piece.”